Handball: EC squad: Prokop decides after double dress rehearsal

National coach Christian Prokop has declared the final test matches against Iceland to be the final spurt for the European Championship squad.

Flax flourished with Silvio Heinevetter and his team mates. While national coach Christian Prokop just publicly announced the final spurt in team-internal squad casting, the German handball team had a great time at the official European Championship photo session before the dress rehearsal against Iceland.

“Despite all the seriousness and focus on the tasks, fun and a little looseness is very important,”said Keeper Heinevetter after the shooting on Thursday at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart.

After the final test games on Friday in Stuttgart and Sunday in Neu-Ulm, Prokop will have to cancel four players from its squad of 20 players.

“With regard to personnel decisions, the games are more important. We can see again who is acting in which position and under competition conditions”, said Prokop:”Everything is really conceivable. No decision has been made yet.”

In addition, the final tests are about starting the EM mission with the tailwind of good results:”Of course we want to be successful and travel to Croatia with a positive feeling.

The company defending the title for the German team will then begin on 13 March. January in Zagreb against Montenegro. Slovenia (15th place in the qualifying round) are also on the other side’s list. January) and Macedonia (17. The foundation for a successful tournament is laid in the preliminary round. We want to go into the main round with the optimum yield,”said Prokop. For the successor of Dagur Sigurdsson it is the first tournament as national coach.

Captain Uwe Gensheimer reaffirms the “important role” of the two games against Iceland:”It’s our dress rehearsal. Until now, we only had the tactical things in training mode. The competition situation is something else,”said the world-class left-winger and emphasized:” You can get a good feeling for the tournament once again.

Like Heinevetter, Gensheimer is likely to defend the company’s title. Question marks, on the other hand, stand behind 2016 European champions such as the wing players Rune Dahmke (THW Kiel) and Tobias Reichmann (MT Melsungen).

It is quite possible that Prokop will only start the tournament with a simple line-up due to the large number of top players in the back room on one of the outer lanes. Especially since up to six (!) changes per team may be made during the European Championship.

“Now everyone’s fit. Nothing better can happen to you than that,”said goalscorer Julius Kühn with anticipation. The last defensive chief Finn Lemke, who missed the first training course in Kamen due to bronchitis, is also back on board like Philipp Weber (midfoot fracture).”We have all the cards in our own hands, we just have to play them well,”said Kühn.